


Get Thee To A Punnery

by stardustbunnies



Category: Call Me Katie (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-26
Updated: 2016-02-26
Packaged: 2018-05-23 07:40:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6109775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustbunnies/pseuds/stardustbunnies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bates and Gleeson exchange puns. It escalates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Thee To A Punnery

**Author's Note:**

> ...I don't know what I'm doing. Enjoy, all twenty people reading CMK fanfiction.

The pun battle officially elevated from playful teasing from Bates to a battle while the Georges were watching  _ Avatar _ on Gleeson's laptop. As much as Gleeson loved the tale of the young airbender, he had to admit he was a lot more focused on his proximity to Bates. Even when Gleeson was trying his best to ignore it, he couldn't help but dwell on the feeling of warmth that enveloped him. They leaned against each other slightly, their sides pressed together and their hands brushing from time to time. It was just enough contact to remain casual, just enough to go uncommented upon. Part of Gleeson wanted to shrink away, part of him wanted to nestle closer. He wondered if Bates noticed how close they were. Gleeson snuck a glance at him. Bates was keeping his eyes trained on the screen, waiting intently to see what would happen next - even though, of course, he had already watched the show hundreds of times. It didn’t seem like Bates was giving any thought to their intimacy, but then again, Gleeson knew he probably looked just as nonchalant. He tried to retain that probable look of nonchalance as he leaned over Bates to grab a handful of popcorn. 

_ It isn't such a big deal. Sure, I'll practically be on top of him, but it's only for a second. And I really want popcorn. _

Suddenly, Bates snapped out of his trance and sharply shoved Gleeson away.

"Get Toph me!" He barked.

Gleeson flinched, surprised and a little bit hurt. "Well, if you just kept the popcorn bowl in the middle-" 

_ Get off me. Get  _ Toph  _ me.  _ He made the connection. 

"I hate you. I  _ hate  _ you!" Gleeson shouted, but he was laughing, as was Bates.

"What, are you  _ Aang _ -ry at me? Do you want me to  _ Lee _ -ve you alone?" Bates grinned at Gleeson smugly.

Gleeson rolled his eyes. "You only wanted to watch  _ Avatar _ today because you wanted to use those puns, didn't you?" 

Bates shrugged, unembarrassed. In fact, judging by the smile he was trying so hard to suppress, he was actually rather proud of himself. 

"You know," Gleeson said, "I think these puns have  _ Korra _ -pted you. You're a different man."

"Hey, hey!" Bates pointed an accusatory finger at Gleeson. "That is a  _ Korra _ pun. We're watching  _ Avatar: the Last Airbender _ . Avatar puns only."

"Well, Korra is the Avatar, isn't she? And besides, why do you get to make the rules?" 

"I am Pun King, Gleeson. I possess the sole right to dictate pun law. Nobody can end my tyrannical reign. Now be quiet, Katara is about to completely own Jet. Again."

Gleeson obeyed, but thought to himself:  _ Pun King? We'll see about that.  _

_ * _ _   
_

**-Bates, what did you think of the third**

**Harry Potter book?**

**-Because I thought it was pretty...**

**riddikulus.**

**  
**

_  
_

**-Gleeson**

**-is this a declaration of war???** **  
**

**-This is a coup. I intend to**

**overthrow the Pun King in a**

**Harry bloody manner.**

**  
**

_  
_

**-fair warning: you will be defeated**

**-you will Neville take away my throne**

**  
**

_  
_

**-You have never been more Ron**

**in your life! I will emerge victorious.**

**  
**

_  
_

**-a MARVOLO-us pun, I'll admit**

**-but Riddle me this:**

**-can you create two at once???**

**  
**

__  


**-If that's Siriusly your hardest challenge,**

**Then your future is looking Black.** **  
**

**-you'd still better watch Cho back,**

**because my puns are coming for you** _  
_

_  
_

**-Yeah, but I’m a wise Kreacher.**

**I’m totally going to win this.** **  
**

**-it doesn’t Seamus as likely as the**

**possibility that you will lose**

**  
**

**-Perhaps. ;)** ****  
_  
_

**-YOU FORGOT TO PUN**

**-I REMAIN SUPERIOR**

**-No, I said "Yes” and added a**

**winky face.**

**-WINKY face.**

**-well........well played Gleeson**

**-you win this round**

**-Fudge you**

**-"Fudge you"?**

**-That's a childish thing to say.**

**-Except...it was a pun, wasn't it?**

**\- ;)**

*****

Going to the party was probably a bad idea - it had only lasted for half an hour, and Gleeson was already tired. He knew it was pathetic, but the music was so loud, and the house was so dark, and the only people he knew were busy arguing loudly in the kitchen about toxic masculinity - or in other words, flirting. So he clung to the wall, swirling his strawberry soda absentmindedly. He didn’t feel like he was up for a party. Sighing, Gleeson grabbed his jacket and started heading towards the door, pushing through the crowd with his eyes on the floor, when someone thrust a soda can into his hands and said excitedly, “Are you a frog?”

Gleeson looked up in shock to see Bates bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, practically vibrating with excitement. 

“What...I thought you said you weren’t coming to this party?” Gleeson asked. 

“Well, I wasn’t, until I found these amazing puns on the Internet, and said to myself, ‘You know who needs to hear these? Gleeson. In person.’ So I rushed over here as fast as I could. With a pack of soda for the hosts, of course. Couldn’t be rude.” Bates gestured to the can in Gleeson’s hands.

_ Strawberry _ , he thought.

“So,” Bates said with a huge grin (which Gleeson refused to admit made his heart flip), “Are you a frog?”

Gleeson rolled his eyes. “The last time I checked, no.”

“Really? Because...you’re  _ ribbit-ing _ !” Bates burst out laughing.

Gleeson raised his eyebrows, amused but confused. “That pun was so funny you had to come here to tell me face to face?”

Bates stopped laughing and rolled his eyes. “Okay, maybe I was just lonely, and maybe I remembered you were going to be at this party, and maybe I needed an excuse to come here without seeming like a total loser. Maybe.”

It was Gleeson’s turn to laugh. “You still seem like a total loser.”

“A  _ toad _ -al loser?”

“An un-frog-ettably huge dork, and a total loser.”

“Oh shit, that was a good one.” Bates pulled his phone out of his pocket and started typing. “Give me a second.”

Gleeson leaned over to look at Bates’s screen. “What - you’re looking up frog puns? Isn’t that cheating?” He cried incredulously.

“Even the Pun King needs wise advisors. My advisors happen to be the clever people of the Internet. They’re helping me prepare for an oncoming pun battle.”

“You’re preparing for a pun battle?” 

“I’m always preparing for a pun battle.” 

“You’re the life of the party.”

“Yeah, and you love it,” Bates shot back, to which Gleeson had no answer. “Let’s get this party started!”

“Nothing more wild than telling frog puns in a corner, right?” Gleeson asked.

Still, he put his jacket back down and took a sip from his can of strawberry soda.

*

“So...how long has this been going on?” Peter asked, watching the Georges with a smirk. 

“Did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a bottle of Coca-Cola? He was lucky it was a soft drink!” Bates yelled.

“I crush cans of Coca-Cola for a living, it’s  _ soda pressing, _ ”  Gleeson yelled back.

Katie rolled her eyes and looked back at Peter. “About two weeks.”

Peter, Katie, and the Georges were on their fake date - or, at least, they were supposed to be. But Bates had tripped over a bush and told it to leaf him alone, and then Gleeson noted it was a thorny situation, and Katie and Peter ended up leaning against a wall as the Georges passionately punned at each other.

“My ex-wife still misses me, but her aim is getting better!”  

“I know for a  _ fact _ you stole that one from a TV show!” 

Peter shook his head with mock-disappointment. “And people say  _ we  _ fight like an old married couple.”

Katie clicked her tongue in disapproval. “They’re more disgustingly adorable than we pretend to be. And they’re not even trying.”

“How much longer do you think they’ll go for?”

“You shouldn’t trust acupuncturists, you know, they’re _ a bunch of backstabbers, _ ” Bates shouted, punching the air for emphasis.

Katie sighed. “A while.”

*

Gleeson screwed his eyes shut and tried to forget the sound of Bates slamming the door behind him. 

_ He was so mad. Maybe even mad enough to...to…  _ Gleeson sighed.

Gleeson couldn’t stand thinking about what Bates had said, or the look of fury on his face, but he really, really couldn’t stand thinking about the possibility that Bates would never smile at him again. 

He flopped back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t know what to do next. Give him space? Pretend like nothing ever happened? 

Maybe Bates wanted him to drop out of his life completely.

Gleeson shook his head. He was being ridiculous. One fight - even one loud, awful fight - couldn’t turn years of friendship into dust. Before he could regret it, he grabbed his phone and punched in Bates’s number. 

_ There’s no problem that communication can’t solve, _ Gleeson told himself with more than a little doubt.

One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Gleeson forced himself to take a deep breath after each one, forced himself to stay calm even though he felt like his heart was hanging by a thread. A thread that only Bates could cut. A thread that he could cut in the next ten seconds. 

Finally, Bates answered, and before he could say anything, Gleeson launched into a rambling apology.

“Bates, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have a right to decide how you define yourself, or how you don’t define yourself, and I really hope I haven’t permanently screwed up-”

“Gleeson.” Bates’s tone was dead serious. “It’s fine. I Kinsey that you meant well.” 

“Thank God, Bates, I was so worried that you were going to-” He paused. “You  _ Kinsey _ that I meant well?”

  
Gleeson could imagine the huge smirk on Bates’s face when he answered, “Yeah, I wasn’t  _ thinking straight _ , I was  _ two _ overcome by anger.” He paused. “Because, I’m like, a two on the Kinsey Scale. I’ll explain that later. I’m not just making random number puns.”

With a grin, Gleeson asked, “So, we’re good then?”

Bates laughed, and Gleeson wrapped the sound around him like a quilt. “Yeah, we’re good. I can’t stay mad at you for long. I mean,” he went on, perhaps a little too hastily, “I can’t stay mad at anyone for long, really.”

Gleeson snorted. “It’s actually a little anticlimactic, that we just make up like this.”

“I could run to your house with a boom box and beg for forgiveness if you want. Draw this whole thing out for another hour as 80s pop songs play in the background.” Bates laughed, but something about his tone suggested he actually wanted to try it, just because it was ridiculous and fun and something he had never done before. 

“Why would you ask for  _ my  _ forgiveness? I was the one trying to force you to do something you didn’t want to do.”

Bates took a deep breath and went from lighthearted to serious. “I really did cross some lines, Gleeson. Say some things I didn’t mean to say, really harsh things that I didn’t really believe. Things I should never have said to someone I care so, so much about.” 

Gleeson’s mouth went dry.

Bates sighed and continued, “I mean, I think you’re great at karaoke, man.”

With a shake of his head, Gleeson thanked the universe that Bates couldn’t see the ridiculously fond smile on his face. Or the slight disappointment.

After that, they talked for another hour, telling stupid jokes and laughing far too loud at them. Bates ranted for ten minutes about the significance of Korrasami’s canonization, and Gleeson talked about a particularly difficult homework assignment. Bates made up a story about crime fighting owls, and Gleeson rambled about Chris Evans’s hair. Bates called Gleeson’s eyes “objectively extraordinary” with a laugh, and Gleeson ignored the flutter in his chest. 

Finally, as Gleeson was about to hang up, Bates added, “By the way, I think we can agree I won the pun battle.”

“What?”

“I  _ Kinsey _ that you meant well? That’s maybe my best pun to date.”

With a laugh, Gleeson replied, “Fine. You win, you dork. You’re the Pun King.”

“Damn right I am.”

Gleeson didn’t say that by being friends with Bates, he was the real winner. He thought that was too cheesy, even for them.

“So,” Bates continued. “Tomorrow. My house. Talk some more. Do you think we should bake a cake afterwards?”

Gleeson smiled. “I think we should.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
